Some people will be pleased to know I have just re-started my next book. I have been labouring under a cloud of lethargy but at long last I have a bit between my teeth and am chewing over the smaller details. For once I have drafted out cues for each section (a process I have NEVER done before)……sorry for shouting!……. and intend to vaguely follow them to the end. However I do have to admit that the actual journey to hit my cue-marks may be affected by some daunting (ie can I really be bothered!……..look, no shouting…..) research.
Some characters follow on from ‘Certain Trace’, the book (novella) I finished yonks ago. Maybe this one will be as short so I can nail them together as the opposite of a spin-off character-led series.
In theory it covers in more detail some of the events of Veronique, Charlie and one or two others that you will not know unless you read ‘A Certain Trace’. Unlikely as it has not yet been published. I did put out a little sneaker section called ‘Extraction’ in ‘wordparc’ some time ago. I feel sure this character (Michael Wise, Captain…….or Major, as he became during World War 1 at Cambrai) will also appear as I got quite fond of him.
Word to the wise, or unwise!…… DO NOT GET TOO FOND OF YOUR CHARACTERS…… when you kill them off, it hurts! Okay, no more shouting.
Who knows where the best laid plan may actually lead you, the writer. That is part of the glory of being a writer, for me, that is: not quite in control. I know where I want to go but the journey can be meandering. Fascinating.
And I will have to stick some fingers into the lives of the Burnthorpe townies and assorted others in between, so words may not always add up!
Well, the future for me is research into all those already well-dug furrows from 1900 right up to today. Tomorrow, too, knowing the rate at which I work. Plus some red-hot pad-tapping hours as I intend to put down an average of two thousand words a day, starting May 1st. 
A bold plan but required if I want to finish this short epic and a third that is fermenting gently. Once again its on a set of characters from ‘A Certain Trace’…….. Hence my thoughts about nailing these novellas together; resulting not so much in a daisy-chain novel as a dog-eared-daisy-of-an-epic-novel……
Now, where’s that dictionary; and my glasses! Better make a cup of coffee first. And find a couple of biscuits……..
Wordparc 